


Out of Style

by kangelique



Series: The Captain Swan Playlist [17]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Family Issues, Gen, Home, Killian gives no fucks because he loves Emma, Liam Jones disapproves as always, Love Confessions, Mild Smut, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:14:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25998112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangelique/pseuds/kangelique
Summary: At this point, Killian's grown used to it. Frankly, he's more addicted to it than his rum.Liam hates it, hates her. In Emma's absence he introduces Killian to girls with good faith in tight little skirts hoping to chase away his love for the woman in her red leather jacket who disappears for months on end.But then midnight strikes and she's there in her bug and Killian is out the door in seconds ready to forgive her, to dive right back in.It's like playing cards. Will they end in burning flames or paradise?This time something's different. This time Emma's said the three magic words."Take me home."So he does.
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Series: The Captain Swan Playlist [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1327670
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Out of Style

**Out of Style:**

Killian laid back into the rocking chair with his poison of choice in hand. 

The creaking of the wood joined the couple floorboards loosened with age and history as it proved fruitless to his wide open eyes staring at the street. His gaze followed the road, empty, and stringing cars to the sidewalk until it winded around the corner. 

None of which cars belonged to her. 

The other much fortunate Victorian houses, with lights intended to guide their loved ones home and Welcoming mats becoming worn with countless excited footsteps, mocking him with their burning fireplaces and tables set for supper. Sun had long since said its farewell for the evening, stars dotting the inky blue sky blinking at him in sympathy. Streetlights flickered with broken promises, and at last he looked away when a third sigh- fainter, longer- escaped his lips. 

His grip tightened around the neck of the bottle, remaining liquid sloshing with growing truth, before he brought it to his lips and grimaced with the pleasant burn traveling down his throat, at the very least familiar and near. 

He took small sips, exaggeratedly savoring by lightly closing his eyes and licking his lips and tracing the tip of his tongue under his mouth when Liam’s glowering threatened to straighten him up. So much for the hero’s journey they’d set upon. Liam and their mum must be in similar stances, with crossed arms and the hint of disapproval in their smile. 

Couldn’t blame them now, could he? The same hint of disapproval creeped upon his smile, seeing as if he closed his eyes, the soft rocking would turn into the soft rocking of his Swan’s hips as she slowly, gently increased their pace and-

Calculated footsteps approached in warning. 

The old, blasted engine sputtering and coughing enveloped his ears, and he rose as his eyes snapped open. 

His bottle was abandoned on the coffeetable, eyes following her as she stepped out of the car and shut the door, feet moving with hers toward the front porch, as though it were a race of who got to admit their apologies first. 

Fingers grasped the knob and already she’d halted at the bottom of the steps, hands playing with her keys as she glanced at the door and cringed slightly. Most certainly Liam’s daggers shot past the wood as they so expertly dug into his back. 

Knots twisted his stomach for him, but his heart skipped a beat for her. Years spent vainly trying to reach the bar, only to realize the game was rigged. The same, meaningless sorry bubbled in his throat, bravely doing its best to break through his pressed lips, but why bother?

With one, firm adjustment of the lapels of his jacket, he opened the door and their eyes met. 

Wind swept through already tossled hair as he stumbled to close the distance, goosebumps momentarily rising before he landed on the last step and they both glanced at the pavement, boots twitching inches from her boots, one most important inquiry standing out amongst the rest. 

Similar to the one flashing in her eyes, exhausted as they were from carrying the weight of her own world, as he grasped her wrist gently and brought the knuckles forth to his lips.

Her gaze followed the prolonged brushes and lingering kiss to the back of her thumb, lips pressing to the chilled skin for a second longer, all too aware that this deer in the headlights woman was another small smile away from leaving dust in her wake. 

He released her hand, releasing her alongside it as she crossed her arms tightly over her chest. 

“Hey,” she whispered. 

He smiled and traced her stiffened form, seeking explanations for the weeks, _months_ without so much as a goodbye. Her standard excuse, work and the like, shined painfully bright on her face, but he took in the boots broken by scratches and grime; the red leather jacket slightly wrinkled and worn by years of walls; and the familiar circles under her eyes darkened with willfulness. 

Beyond was her true self, hair pulled into a low ponytail; legs hugged tight by faded blue jeans;tank top failing to fend off the impatient wind and the faintest dab of lipgloss to her otherwise clean face. So liberated she was of heels and hot pink dresses and fake happiness for fake men. 

“You look stunning, Swan,” he said, blinking. 

Her eyes fell to the ground. “I’m sorry.”

His eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head as he cupped her cheek. “Whatever for?” he asked softly, thumb sliding into practice across prominent cheekbones, perhaps too prominent, prisoner of her own beliefs that one couldn’t have more than what was given. 

“I did it again,” she sighed. 

The glaring truth dug daggers into his heart. “Aye,” he replied quietly. 

She bit her lip after a moment and inhaled a deep breath before nodding to the car. “So. You want to?”

Liam’s warnings rushed forth. Questions on why must he always fall for shallow women, unavailable women. Threats that if he couldn’t find the strength to deny her then he would simply be denied entrance on their home. 

But Swan was unavailable in all the ways that mattered. Emotionally. Mentally. And he offered the remedy when he quipped an eyebrow and curled his palm around her forearm. 

“Will that vehicle truly hold for such a distance?” He smirked. 

She rolled her eyes. “Shut up.”

Another warning rose as he followed her. To be a gentleman. And he was always a gentleman. But she ran around the hood and hustled inside before he could protest, slamming the door shut with a finality that ticked his jaw. For what man had been so careless with her heart? Something as simple as opening the door crinkled her forehead and sparked a new frown of uncertainty and the begging question of why. 

They buckled in. 

At once, her shoulders sagged and her eyes closed on a measured sigh. The trembling zeeped from her hands as they gripped the steering wheel firmly. She leaned forward, shifting the car into gear, turning the radio down to her liking, and rolling both windows. The color returned to her cheeks as she stepped on the gas, hard, and sped, dial rising and rising. In control. Here, as he relaxed into the seat, her previous words pulled at his smile. Said so herself. She had no desire to plant roots, couldn’t stay long enough to water them. 

“Listen.” She glanced at him tentatively, as though weighing how many pieces it was appropriate to divulge, and in the end settled for one, perhaps the safest of all as she cleared her throat. “I know it’s been a while.”

“Since I’ve heard from you? Aye,” he replied softly, “Indeed it has.”

“I’m back,” she breathed, and winced. “I think I’m back.”

He leaned ever so slightly and smoothed his palm over her jumbling knee. She stiffened for a moment, by default no doubt, but slowly relaxed when his fingers grazed her thigh and his circling thumb found purchase through her jeans, kneading the lies they both so desperately craved. “Alright, darling. It’s all alright.”

She narrowed her eyes but he nodded and motioned toward the green light with a smirk. “Lead the way, Swan.”

Midnight scowled at him in glowing, scarlet letters on the dashboard. The time for wishes to be made by the docks, fresh promises broken come dawn, and exploring hands to regret their exploration when the realization that the foreign path was a foreign path no longer. 

She never arrived past midnight but neither did she arrive before. 

Always a fashionably five minutes late to any event, the result of clustered houses where rules were law and freedom was a tempting ghost, he would have guessed. And if he wished to quelch the longing in his chest, he’d have to catch her, call out her name, make his presence known because freedom _was_ a tempting ghost and could very well persuade her onto the highway quicker than he could give a piece of him to her for remembrance. 

In his mind, and most importantly her mind, midnight was a cover, a firm blanket of dark where the townspeople needn’t wonder if Emma Swan had returned. If she’d given up this pursuit of punishment. 

The Nolans inquired about her now and again. She never inquired about them. Accepting bits and swallowing them as though they were rocks, contrary to her mother and father who ate them like they anything but the hardtacks they truly were. She’d found them and she’d left and left him staring after the plate number in the process. The child - Leopold, if he recalled correctly- was what kept her tears at bay, kept the rigid line on her lips, kept her proving she could disappear too, without a trace, without mercy. 

Picturesque houses blurred past. 

The stop light demanded he be earnest. About the earnest words whispered at the townline. To hell with the consequence. 

“So I caught him, by the way.” His eyebrows arched and she grinned and it was the sun rising after a cruel winter. He grinned back and she did a light, little dance in her seat that sent him chuckling, arse wiggling and giggle escaping as her nose scrunched. He stared at her, arrested by her sudden happiness, that fact this, _this woman,_ had finally grinned and remained grinning. She shrugged and laughed, “All the way up in Phoenix.”

“I’m proud of you, sweetheart.” His gaze landed on her knuckles, the shy blue and harsh purple meshed onto her creamy skin provoking a deep frown. “However, is that who I’m to blame for these bruises?”

“No.” She sighed, long and full of tales. “That was another guy.”

“Where?”

Her lips twisted, eyes briefly squeezing shut. “New York,” she whispered. 

“Ah.” Not just another city away then. But two. Soon, if he didn’t thread waters cautiously, it would be three. 

“I saved this.” A brown paper bag hit his lap and swayed forward as she ran over a pothole. She shot him an apologetic look and rolled her eyes when he poked the bag, awaiting any hints. “Oh my god, can you just open it? It’s not gonna bite you.” Warmth flooded his cheeks as his fingers probed first, around a circle, curiously enough, and he scratched behind his ear when he peered inside at the bagel. Plain. And his. And she _remembered._ Care even?

“My thanks, love.”

Her eyes widened and she looked away. “Yep, well your weird bagel obsession is funny. And weird. Have to keep it alive, you know? You know there are donuts. Way better,” she rambled, and now he was not the only one with red sprouting on her skin as she tugged on the ends of her hair. Very well, if she wished to play casual, he was all too glad to comply. 

“Seemingly like your poptart one, yes?” He smirked, wide and dripping with challenge. 

She swatted at his chest. “Do not come at me with that!”

He sobered instantly, chest puffing towards her hand, delicate fingers resting near the lapel a beat too long, a beat too right, and he wrapped them gently into his palm. She freezed, fingers embarking on their squirm away from meaning and conversation. Not yet. “Emma,” he began softly, and she gasped on air. “How have you been?”

“You first,” she snapped, and snatched her hand back. 

“Lonesome, I’m afraid,” he responded easily. He’d been scraping by on recollections and the few meager messages when her liberations clouded her walls at night. 

“Really?” She snorted. “Last I heard you were out and about with some other girl.”

Heard from Liam, certainly. About the beautiful Australian woman he’d ‘come across’ and introduced to Killian. Claimed she was perfect, she was compatible, she was good for him. Open. Free of walls. Shared the affinity for books as he did, was prepared to try as he was. Was intent on not judging someone until she knew their whole story. She was the embodiment of a house with lads and lasses and future. She wasn’t Emma, _she wasn’t_ Emma. 

She wasn’t Emma and it gave him pause Every. Bloody. Time. 

His eyes softened. “That envy there, love?” he asked gently. 

“No,” she said quickly, but a flash of _is it true, did Liam’s plan finally succeed_ flashed on her face. Her face morphed to stone in seconds. “And I’m not your love remember?”

“All too well,” he replied softly, the hint of a knife flying through his hiss directed at their predicament, this addicting pattern they’d fallen into, of burning flames or paradise. 

Which would it be today?

Emma heightened her shoulders at his words, misunderstanding the bitter as her chest rose, and in there, right then, the bars restrained her heart once more, tighter as the dial stuttered to seventy miles an hour and her face shifted to one of necessary determination, to run, in any way possible, from the belief that she was at fault. 

How wrong she was. 

He was as much the maker of their calamity as she was. 

“Swan-”

“How was she?” she asked flatly, voice, face, eyes, entire body gone numb too quick and too soon. 

His jaw clenched, teeth gritting, as he dropped his head against the headrest and rubbed a hand over his face.

Bloody hell.

At this rate, with the amount of times she was slipping in and out of sense, and the amount of times he was late to throw the bucket of water over their burning flames, they’d never reach common ground and oh how he wanted common ground, how he wanted halfway, and she, and him, and _middle._ Middle was the best form of all. The goal towards recurring paradise.

“One of Liam’s failed attempts, I assure you,” he finally said. 

“Yeah, to get you to forget about me.” 

“As I said before, dear, rather waste of effort on his part.”

“He hates me.” 

“He simply doesn’t know you.” _Not as I do, not with the future in your eyes._

“But didn’t you say I was like an open book or whatever?” He straightened. She’d returned. And he nodded, smiling to hold her steady, flicking his wrist around and offering his palm like a worn, calloused, unworthy anchor, but an anchor nonetheless as he wiggled his fingers, quipped an eyebrow. She bit her lip and stared, car slowing to a crawl, and her fingertips brushed his, reaching and reaching and-

“Sorry.” She swallowed and shook her head, scoffing incredulously. “You really think it’ll make a difference if he knows me? I ruin things.”

“His perspective is elsewhere, is all.”

“On you,” she snapped her head around, glaring. “And it’s not for some shitty reason either, it’s a good reason.”

“Swan.”

Her eyes popped. “Killian, let’s not,” she whispered, face pleading as the car abruptly stopped, jostling them forward. 

Shifting to Parking, her gaze drifted to the window, and in a moment, one more fucken moment and he would lose her to her past as she stared and thought and resented. 

Her lower lip quivered whilst his seatbelt unbuckling broke their silence and she snapped her head around, thrusting her neck back as he stretched his hand towards her face, thumb settling into the dent of her chin firmly, purposely as her mouthed opened and closed and he didn’t let go for the remnants of him, of them, sliding closer, so close her breasts smushed through clothing, through chest, and he cupped her cheek. 

“Not yet,” she said weakly, a last-ditch trick he was all too keen to. 

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he breathed gruffly. 

“I’ve been there too.” She sniffed. “A few times.”

“Then?” he asked, like the hopeful bastard he was. 

“I-I think I…”

“What?” 

He waited. For an eternity, it seemed. Loaded with the fact that there was, indeed, a first time for everything. 

Until. 

Her eyes locked with his. “Take me home.”

Both their smiles were cracked, chapped, foreign, but they smiled and she closed her eyes, melted even under the lingering kiss warming into her forehead. “As you wish,” he whispered. 

They switched positions. 

He was the driver. He was leading now. 

Their joined hands squeezed reassurances back and forth on her thigh. 

He drove slowly. No seatbelts. No restraints. Every door available unlocked. Her other hand didn’t reach for the handle once, _once._ And she rolled her eyes each time he deliberately stopped at a green light to compare her eyes and place relieved, feather light kisses upon her slightly shaky knuckles. 

She was silent as he opened her door, and gestured with a flourish for her to cross the threshold first. 

Then she turned and he turned and the door slamming reverberated throughout the house, through his ears as she pounced. He caught her at her hips, fingers rapidly grasping hems that fulfilled no purpose in the dark, and they slithered upward toward sensitive skin, pushing and pushing as he collected fabric in his fists and a hard clamp of her lip and her red leather jacket was shrugging out of her shoulders and she was pulling the shirt over her head in a matter of seconds. 

“Liam’s right, you know,” she breathed as their lips broke apart and she jumped without warning, flashing him a smirk, the little minx, as he seized her thighs easily and hoisted her ar the same time her legs wrapped around his waist. 

“You needn’t believe that dear,” he said and growled into her mouth as one hand snaked between their crushing chests and grabbed him swiftly, already hardened by the fingers stroking him roughly, viciously as each pump evoked his grunts. She pumped him good, just the way he fancied, the way only a woman who’d been with him before only knew, and it was a feat to keep his splayed palms against her back as she rubbed her clothed center against him, dragging herself up by the nails digging into his shoulder as she continued squeezing him thoroughly, increasing his pants. 

“Bloody hell, Swan,” he stammered, eyes blinking closed as her palm wrapped around him again, one second of relief no way enough for his puffing cheeks as he exhaled loudly. “If we carry on like this, I- _I CAN_ assure you I won’t last very long.”

“That’s the plan,” she grinned wickedly. 

Somehow, his fingers steadied to unclasped her bra, and she pulled the straps for him, revealing the perfectly round and plump breasts with nipples that peaked at his attention. They hardened against his tongue, and now it was her turn to come undone, as her back arched and he drew out moans from sucking, and licking, and tweaking nipples between his thumb and index fingers, rolling them excessively until she clawed his biceps for support. 

He released a breast with a pop and licked his lips salaciously. “You were saying, darling?” 

She rolled her eyes and laughed breathily, taking care of flinging her bra over the rail as his belt followed. 

Pinning her against a wall, his mouth descended on her neck, insistent kisses pushing into skin as wild, impatient hands shoved his pants down as quick as his clamping on skin and faltering gasp as he sucked a bruising reminder and soothed it with his hot tongue allowed her. 

“We crash and burn everytime,” she mumbled, fingers carding through his hair and ducking her head as their lips met, capturing his kiss amorously and deepening their twisted tongues as she angled his neck. “Because of me.”

His eyebrows furrowed and one, two, three steps and they were in the bedroom, _theirs,_ if she could ever come to admit that some of her clothing filled his drawers to the brim and more than a couple of her mugs were strewn across his writing desk, much to idiotic to remove them so he placed pencils and pens in them instead. And she simply smiled and brought another. 

Placing her gently on the mattress, he kicked his boots off and removed hers slowly without taking his eyes away from her guilty ones, and once finished he climbed above her as she lay back, their fingers entwining tightly on either side of her head. 

He stared at her, a walking photograph of heartache and misfortune, and he leaned forth, pressing his forehead to hers, because perhaps they could leave heartache and misfortune together. “And yet we come back to one another, my love,” he whispered, hovering above her lips, above her body, above their chasm. 

She sighed and looped her arms around his neck. “I can’t.”

His thumbs hooked into the hem of her jeans. “I ask of you, be sincere with me.” _Do tell me you want this, do tell me I’ve won your heart._ He swallowed his pleas, which did him no good in the face of her crumbling features, but how he would plead, beg even, for her to speak the truth. 

Make or break him. 

Foolish. So foolish. 

He was a fool. The arrogant arse was right. 

She was _it._ Constant uncertainty and constant running, but she was it. And he was in over his head. 

Her knuckles caressing his cheek startled him, but she chuckled waterily and with a sharp intake of breath her eyes warmed and her smile softened and she said, “I missed you too, babe.”

His smile surely split his face. “I’m quite certain that’s all that matters.”

He flicked the lights off, plunged the room in darkness. 

And for a moment, their hands only traced. Slowly at first, but growing desperate and wild as fingers trailed waists and skipped along backs and down arms and brushing heaving chests. Their kisses were no different, tongues touching gently and sliding slowly, but soon they turned heated and mouths opened and closed to swirling tongues and slanting lips as the starvation for her sparked in his belly, springing his cock again and trembling her legs in anticipation as his palms caught underneath her thighs and parted them, widening them to the fullest, the sweet, tangy smell of her invading his nostrils as he rubbed his face against her clothed nub. 

Her abdomen contracted and her breath hitched. 

“How was she?”

My my was it not obvious?

He turned and planted a soft kiss to her inner thigh. “She wasn’t you, love,” he sighed, bumping his forehead into her skin.

“No?”

“No.”

He tugged her underwear down just so, and tossed it to the side, somewhere in his haze they clashed with her jeans and his boxers on the carpet. 

And then. 

Lined himself at her entrance. 

She shifted, palms sweeping his arms. “A good girl probably, in a tight little skirt to get your attention. Liam’s not stupid.”

“You are correct on his intelligence,” he quipped, and entered her in one swift thrust. She gasped and gripped his shoulders. “But much to your chagrin, I have eyes only for you.”

“I don’t hate it hate it,” she sighed as he filled her completely, back arching and melting into the sheets as he pushed deeper into her slippery folds. Quite easy with how her walls welcomed him, tightening him lower and lower with each new thrust that jostled her breasts in the air and rolled her eyes to the back of her head. 

“Wonderful.” He rolled his hips, setting their unapologetic rhythm as the sounds of damp skin smacking into each other enveloped his ears. 

“But hey wait.” Oh he did not. Pounding into her with abandon, drawing out her moans as he stretched her. In. And out. In and out, in and out. She panted, beads of sparking moisture clinging to her forehead as his own rolled down the sides of his face, and she jumped without disconnecting them, provoking both their groans as she threw her legs around him and dug the heels of her feet into his arse, rubbing against his cheeks as he plunged in again and she held him there for a moment. “You’re still happy to hear I got my heart broken?”

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “If it’s broken, it means it still works.”

She smiled a small smile. “Maybe. I’m thinking maybe.”

Bloody hell. 

His Swan was thinking hope. 

He swallowed thickly. “Allow me to show you,” he replied darkly. 

Come sunrise, they did not say temporary farewells in burning flames. 

The sun’s rays shined over the content smile snuggled in his arms belonging to the body who had stayed past morning. 

Come sunrise, they remained in paradise. 

**Author's Note:**

> -Song: Style by Taylor Swift
> 
> -Thoughts?


End file.
